There is no shortage of reasons to watch the dystopian series Snowpiercer: intense drama, dazzling VFX, and a cast that includes such familiar faces as Oscar Award–Winner Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs-Grammy (Tony Award–Winner for his performance as the Marquis de Lafayette in Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton), and Primetime Emmy Award nominee Mike O’Malley of Glee, Sully, The Good Place, etc. For American audiences of this series, one of the most enjoyable surprises has been that of Canadian actress Esther Ming Li who appears as Carly Roche, Sam Roche’s (played by Mike O’Malley) daughter in the show. Carly serves as a focal point for how such a future will be dealt with by a younger generation and Ms. Li embodies an angst and firecracker energy that her character have become beloved for. Fresh off her work in Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone on CBS, Esther brought energy and a fresh face to Snowpiercer which has been proven perfectly suited for this Leo Award–Winning and Primetime Emmy Award–Nominated hit series airing on the A&E network.
“Hey firecracker” is how Sam Roche greets his daughter Carly in one scene; nothing could be a more appropriate description of her. Suffering the loss of two siblings and her mother, Carly’s resistance to accepting life’s oppression makes her a powerful ally or opponent, depending on the circumstances. She shines under stress. Justifiable anger from her situation has been tempered into determination. Carly strives to keep a grip on hope but it seems as if every time she establishes a new normal, the rug gets pulled out from under her. Fiercely committed to her family of only two, she still makes time to be embarrassed by her father’s attempts at humor. It’s potent, even infectious, how Esther Ming Li presents this young woman’s struggle to create some baseline of normal life in this cataclysmic situation. It’s so often Carly’s interactions with Sam that give the storyline a familiar tone of caring, even in such a desperate setting. Their bond reflects something that an audience can recognize in themselves among the scenario of a train navigating the globe in an eternal winter.
Esther finds a common thread with her character in the show stating, “In my mind, Carly originally wanted to be a sociologist. She is deeply fascinated with what would’ve happened if the freeze never happened. I personally went to business school but had always been fascinated with acting. And during my first year of college, I started attending a scene study class. Being in school my whole life up until that point meant that I was pretty sheltered from the real world because I would really only interact with other kids my age who lived around the same area. But in this scene study class, I saw people from all walks of life. There were many old ladies who had retired but had always wanted a try at acting; there were stunt men who realized they wanted to act as well as doing stunts; and at one point I was even paired with an English priest who was in Canada for a while because his son had relocated to Vancouver for work and he was always fascinated with the craft of acting. I loved getting to know people from all walks of life and how we all related to the same basic human struggles. I was obsessed. After a few months, my acting teacher referred me to someone who helped me compile a few scenes and we sent them off to a couple of agencies and the rest is history! I finished my second year of university and just never went back and focused on acting full time.” Now that she finds herself among the cast of a multiple award–nominated science fiction series being directed by Leslie Hope and Christph Schewe, and exploring the many sides of Carly Roche, the decision to pursue “what if” seems completely validated. One thing is without question, Esther Ming Li makes watching Snowpiercer a highly appealing use of time.
Writer : Jordan Watts